I find this surprising and scary:

Millions have less than £100 in savings, study finds

I’ve got about £650 of unsecured debt. Mind you I’m seemingly Opex, Mrs S is Capex.

Not surprising in the slightest, but definitely scary. We’re a nation propped up by credit. A huge amount of people live month to month, and the saying that you’re only 2 pay cheques away from being homeless is probably very accurate.

Jesus! do you know what level of willy waving is going to follow? 🙄

Not see so long ago I didn’t. Can’t say I was scared.

up until my mid 30’s I didn’t.

before 27ish that was because I kept buying records and booze

after that it was because I was self-employed and genuinely skint. I don’t find that stat surprising at all – probably almost half my friends are now in their mid 30’s and still living in shared accommodation…

In pensions – yes.

In a savings account – no.

Basically: people with no money should save a load of money. Yeah, right.

I regularly put money away, one pot is going towards getting on the housing ladder (hopefully happening before summer next year) and the other is going towards a new bike (that’s happening in the new year, nothing is getting in the way of that!)

Yup, but unemployed, currently forecasting to run out of money mid december. Could be better, could be worse.

We have no debt to except the mortgage (should be paid off in our early 50s) and enough savings to buy a used car should we need to.
I know people with terrifying mortgages at our age, a £40k car on PCP on the drive and loaded credit cards……

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero. I’m throwing every ‘spare’ penny I’m left with at the end of the month (usually sweet FA) at my mortgage. A small percentage of interest on £100 savings is FA, a small percentage of interest on Ten’s of grand of debt is a bit more substantial. Bikes are funded via interest free credit cards/credit or bike to work (mainly because of the tax benefit – I’m a tax avoider on that score).

“I know people with terrifying mortgages at our age, a £40k car on PCP on the drive and loaded credit cards……”

Likewise. And stranger still for me – dont seem to be worried about it.

I couldnt sleep at night with the level of debt some folk i know have – esp working in ne scotland at the moment.

Until i was 34 or 35 i hadn’t even had a steady income for more than about 4 months at a time in any year. My tax/pension/NI status in the UK was somewhat ropey. I think i’ll get about 47p a year pension (unless they abolish them before i retire.)

The first *complete* tax year where i worked an entire 12 months (that was a shock) i had so much money that i didn’t know what to do with it.

So i spent it all. And then some.

Was probably into my 40s before i could honestly say i had a bank accunt (of any sort) that even managed to remain in the black for an entire year. Probably ok now though.

I haven’t got a single penny in savings and no pension whatsoever.

I haven’t got a single penny in savings and no pension whatsoever.

[Passes Loddrick a fine single malt and a service revolver]

Those figured can’t be right for Yorkshire. It’ll all be stuffed under the mattress, and they just aren’t admitting to it 😉

I certainly do these days (he said waving his willy) but there have been times when I didn’t and ended each month in debt. So no, I’m not surprised.

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero. I’m throwing every ‘spare’ penny I’m left with at the end of the month (usually sweet FA) at my mortgage.

Could you get at that mortgage money if needed? What about investments? The concept of savings is not clear really as depends on debt levels as to how much savings mean really. But so many people not having as little as £100 in cash or instant access a/c surprises me.

Wonder what a service revolver would go for on the black market, might cover his £100 quid in savings.

No, neither of us do, but we also have zero debt.

Didnt this one get done a while ago with x% of americans couldnt raise 300 dollars at short notice story?

I’ve got a buffer saved up that in the event of redundancy i should be okay for 4-5 months before I start panicking. Hasn’t always been this way, only managed to build this up over the last few years.

I have a little bit but not very much. If push came to shove I should be able to take a bit more money from my business though (which is what I tend to do in the form of bonuses as and when I need to).

We are, thankfully, owners of around 66% of our home so if crap hit the fan we could downsize and be mortgage free.

That’s partly the fault of Gov. policy though for dissuading folk from saving..

I couldnt sleep at night with the level of debt some folk i know have

Me neither, self employed and don’t feel comfortable without a years worth of mortgage/living costs in the bank as a float to see me through a recession.
I don’t understand how salaried people can rack up so much debt and not have a bit in reserve when you know exactly what is coming in every month?
I appreciate there are those on low incomes (I was one once) but I bet a lot of them have sky tv/new iPhones/eat out and booze/nearly new car etc etc.

My credit card debt outweighs my savings but things are manageable. The only way I manage to save anything these days is through buying company shares (it comes directly out of my pay), I put 10% aside for that (the company matches 3% and the shares have performed well for the last 15 years so kind of works for savings if not exactly risk free). Ofc every couple of years I withdraw chunks to waste on bikes or to stop me getting overdrawn so I only have a couple of grand there at any time, others in the company have built it up over 15+ years and are sitting on 6-figure amounts of shares 🙁

I could probably scrape together a couple of hundred but that is it.

I’m 43, our Mortgage is in excess of £250k and we have fair chunk on Credit cards (as a result of extending our house)

However, we have over 50% equity in our house, so if/when it all goes wrong we’ll sell, pay everything off and buy a cheaper house with little/no mortgage.

It probably should keep me awake at night but doesn’t…

I have enough to choke a dozen donkeys.

(Which apparently is £900 according to film quotes)

In reality I’m not prepared to comment.

I reckon I could last 3-6 months comfortably, perhaps a year with tightening some belts, perhaps 18 with severe budgeting.

Just me to think about though, so aware not everyone is as lucky

I currently have -£200, Usually teeter around +£400 to -£300 and don’t see that changing for at least a couple of years.

I find this surprising and scary:

If you find it surprising that a 16million people don’t have any savings then you’ve led a very sheltered life. The vast majority of people that work for our company are on minimum wage, every penny they get counts, by the time pay day comes around they have zero money left.

I know people with terrifying mortgages at our age, a £40k car on PCP on the drive and loaded credit cards….

IMHO there’s no right or wrong answer to this.

Yeah, too much debt can be stressful, but, and this is sometimes a shock to some people – one day we will all be dead, you can’t always be thinking about the future because one day you won’t have one.

I don’t personally have a huge amount of debt, more than I’d like but by nature I’d prefer to have none, but I don’t judge people who do – often it’s the case that they’re in a better position than you might think long-term.

Consider the people you know:

Large mortgage, but large asset – having a large mortgage does limit the amount of disposable cash you have month to month, but legislation as it is these days means than they would have needed at least 5% equity to buy it, there’s a possibility they could have self-certed into a too big mortgage about 10 years ago or bought it with a 110% mortgage, but those issues will have resolved themselves by now.

Big PCP payments, I have my own personal issues with the PCP product, but ultimately it’s another leveraged asset, the finance company had to ‘prove’ to a decent level of certainty that they could afford it when they bought it.

Big Credit Card bill, hardest to look past of course – but do you really know how much they owe? I don’t know anyone who hands over their statements to their friends every month – but again, the credit card company cannot lend more than they can comfortably afford AND can afford to repay, not just ‘service’ every month. They can’t fib and borrow £10k from Barclaycard and £10 from Capital One at the same time, because balances and repayment history is centralised and published to any and all potential lenders.

So, whilst it doesn’t seem prudent, you can live with a lot of debt and it’s reasonably safe too – finance has changed a lot over the years and especially since 2008 – these days a finance agreement is considered a 2 way agreement (it always was, but rarely worked as such in the past) The customer presents a set of fact – income, expenditure, past financial history, the seller presents a facility based on those facts – if anything meaningful changes than the seller is duty bound to change their agreement – so for example if you lose your job they should accept a lower payment until things improve, it will have a detrimental effect on your credit worthiness, but not as bad as you might think, if there’s a disaster, say someone is badly hurt and may never return to work again, then they may ask for assets to be returned but it’s not quick and it doesn’t need to be any more painful that it needs to be – if you’re honest and open with your bank it’s likely you’ll get 12 months before your house is repossessed, most people can sell up and settle long before the bailiffs come.

Consumer Debt really is a no-lose gamble these days as long as you don’t panic or bury your head if things go wrong, and if it does the courts are heavily weighted in favour of the consumer – if a bank lends more than they should, they’ll lose in court, if a bank refuses to be reasonably flexible in the event of a ‘meaningful life event’ they’ll lose in court, and if it all goes wrong and you end up in Bankruptcy court – the most you’ll lose is the things you bought with the borrowed money in the first place. The assets they’re allowed to take for bankruptcy is just luxury goods.

More than that but not loads. Like a few on here though, no debt and money in the bank is a relatively recent thing, it’s only in the last couple of years that income has been steady and predictable which makes a massive difference IMO.

I’m a bit surprised by the figures but only in that I’d have thought it would be a little bit more, a few hundred maybe. It’s no surprise that millions of people have effectively naff all money saved.

Im secure now, but earlier in my life I had no savings and lots of debt.

We live in a world with no rate of return on savings and marketing that causes you to buy stuff or feel worthless. Social media makes it worse. There was a time when any sort of loan / credit was seen as wrong.

Now we have happy adverts making 1000%+ interest seem quite normal.

Most people are doomed when they cant work – governments will then have to tax those that did save and work to pay for those who didn’t.

I’m keeping my savings offshore so they cant be spent on the poor 🙂

Oh as for me.

This is collectively between my Wife and I.

We’ve got about £1500 in our savings account. We have a ‘windfall’ of £9k due soon.

But we owe about £2000 on a low rate card, we also owe about £4000 on a very low interest loan – this was a tidy-up consolidation loan to clear debts associated with my Wife completiting her Uni course.

We’ve both got decent incomes, nothing flash, but over the national average salary.

Jesus! do you know what level of willy waving is going to follow

Without wishing to live up to this 🙂

I have around 100x that available in ‘cash’ as savings – but am still very very nervous about credit / ongoing monthly commitments – it’s definitely down to attitude as much as income.

It’s also my only savings, I should be having less as ‘cash’ working the rest of it a lot harder somehow, but I get the heeby jeebys doing that too!

I’m not sure I get the argument that there’s no point saving because there’s no meaningful interest though.

no

There was an article a few years back which looked at something similar and a large number of people interviewed had winning the national lottery as their retirement plan.